Tag Archives | Storm King Art Center

The debate about intellectual property rights rattled around my head while I was visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art and later the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was somewhat surprised to learn they permitted photography provided it was for private use and flash was not used. Video is forbidden. As a contrast, in most live performance settings, you can’t use any sort of recording device at all.

Now let me acknowledge from the start that there are marked differences between the two settings. In a gallery one has greater leeway in the timing of photographs. You can wait for a group to move away from a piece before taking a picture. In a live performance, great moments are fleeting. And because it is more difficult to properly frame people in motion, you often feel the need to take multiple pictures in a short time. This sense of urgency can inevitably put the photographer at a live event in a position where they are impinging on the enjoyment of other attendees far more frequently than the museum photographer. Unless most everyone is participating in recording the event, the distraction of the attempt is generally undesirable, even without flash.

But outside the time when the performance is occurring, almost every element of the performance is protected. Whether you are in the audience before the show or on a backstage tour, you can’t take pictures of the set, lights or costumes because they are considered protected intellectual property. Performers also reserve the control of their likeness.

Yet when I was at the Metropolitan Museum there was an exhibition of costumes by Alexander McQueen and unless I missed the sign, the rules about photography were the same as the rest of the museum. Perhaps it was because his designs were considered fashion and therefore meant to be photographed. But what about all the other works in the museums which are still protected by copyright and whose creators are still very much alive? Are they not being harmed by people taking pictures of their work? Maybe there is a debate raging in the visual arts world that they are. I have only really started reading about visual arts issues in earnest over the last year. Perhaps I have missed the conversation.

Heck, will my posting images from Storm King Art Center dissuade people from visiting them? If so, the genie is out of the bottle Google Maps actually lets you view photos of each piece as it is positioned on the ground. I am guessing that isn’t about to erode attendance because I saw a large number of tweets about visiting Storm King the last few days.

It got me to thinking that all these restrictions are seriously impeding the cause of the performing arts. The elements I am referring don’t even enter the discussion about whether a bootleg copy of a performance replaces a possible sale. This doesn’t approach the question about whether agreeing to allow a promotional video to be broadcast on television also gives permission for the video to be posted on YouTube, if it deserves additional compensation and if it is eroding one’s brand. These are already issues of debate and clearly worthy of discussion on their own.

Few people are going to make the decision to skip the show because they saw a close up picture of a costume or the unattractive back side of a flat. Yeah, so the illusion is broken, but for a lot of people it is exciting to compare the reality with the illusion that fooled them. Are designers going to suddenly be forced out of work or their reputations ruined when photos of the show start appearing online? Will those pictures threaten to allow less talented people to replicate the designs at a lower cost? How is this more a threat to a designer than to a visual artist? Yes, there may be proprietary technology involved. However, most people on a backstage tour don’t have the means to replicate it and if those that do can recreate it from passing photographs, they probably have the means to acquire the information with relatively little effort anyway.

What is being protected? Is the value of whatever is being protected actually enhanced by doing so? Or is the fact that so few are ever exposed to it mean that its perceived value is generally insignificant?

So I am back from my vacation! From the traffic statistics, it looks like a fair number of people enjoyed reading some of the back catalog of posts to which I provided links. My travels this year took me and my friends back to the East Coast to visit the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (access is regrettably much more restricted since 2001 than when I was growing up); Niagara Falls (I may actually be in a video promoting Ontario); the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg; Philadelphia, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and New York City, which included visits to some Broadway shows and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

One of the centerpieces of the trip and something many readers may not be familiar with, was taking a canal boat on the Erie Canal.

View of the Canal

Admittedly, the coolest part was going through the locks. Fortunately for me, the diesel engine drown out my singing of the Erie Canal Song or I am sure my friends would have tossed me overboard.

That’s The Way We Came In. The water was all the way up there at the top of the wet line

That’s The Way Out After a 25 Foot Drop

Another place we went early on in the trip was Storm King Art Center, a 500 acre sculpture park just north of NYC. I actually grew up in the same county but I never had the occasion to visit. As I wandered about, I wondered why my schools never had a trip to this place. The sheer enormity of the park and many of the sculptures would have won over most of my classmates who really would have wanted to go to an amusement park instead.

Zhang Huan, Three Legged Buddha

Menashe Kadishman, Suspended

Alice Aycock, Three-Fold Manifestation II

I guess it is true that those who live near sites of cultural/historical significance or just major attractions don’t end up visiting them because they are so easily available. I ended up traveling 5,000 miles to visit a place that was only about 45 minutes from me most of my life.

About the Author

When I was a teenager if anyone had told me that I would be excited to share information about contract law, marketing, human resources, grant writing and the philosophy behind ticket pricing, I would have laughed...and laughed. But there is such a dearth of this information applicable to the needs of non-profit arts organizations that I do get excited when I see the opportunity to discuss these topics....read more